1. Field of The Invention
The present invention relates to an electrical connector, and particularly to a high density board-to-board connector.
2. The Prior Art
High density board-to-board connectors are proposed to meet the development of portable computers which require that the connectors used therein occupy the smallest amount of space possible and directly connect a daughter board to a mother board avoiding the use of cables.
Conventional high density board-to-board connectors are disclosed in U.S. Utility Pat. Nos. 5,219,294 and 5,567,168 and U.S. Design Pat. Nos. D332,599, D364,378 and D367,263. However, such conventional high density board-to-board connectors have a complicated structure and, thus, a high manufacturing cost.
Furthermore, in order to correctly solder such conventional connectors onto a printed circuit board (PCB), each connector is equipped with a spacer to precisely space tail portions of contacts thereof from each other a predetermined distance. However, as shown in FIG. 1, when the contacts 30 are bent to have tail portions 301 perpendicular to body portions 302 thereof, the tail portions 301 of the two rear rows of contacts 30 have a length which is too long resulting in excessive flexibility thereof. It becomes tedious to correctly extend tail portions having excessive flexibility into contact tail portion receiving holes defined in a spacer 40.
To overcome this disadvantage, an improvement has been proposed to bend the contacts 30' twice whereby the tail portions 301' thereof have the same length, as shown in FIG. 2. Therefore, the tail portions 301' can be easily assembled to the spacer 40. However, bending the contacts twice increases manufacturing costs.
Hence, an improved high density board-to-board connector is needed to eliminate the above mentioned defects of current high density board-to-board connectors.